The present invention relates, in general, to electronics, and more particularly, to methods of forming semiconductor devices and structure.
In the past, the electronics industry utilized various methods and devices to protect circuits from shorts and other voltage transient. In some applications it was desirable to plug or unplug electronic circuits from their power source without removing the power. This may occur when a circuit card was inserted or removed from a small system such as a personal computer or from a large system such as a telecommunications system that may have a large rack full of electronic cards. Cards often were removed and re-inserted without powering down the entire system. These situations were referred to as xe2x80x9chot swapxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9chot plugxe2x80x9d applications since the power lines remain xe2x80x9chotxe2x80x9d during the transfers.
During some hot plug events, the card being plugged in was defective and presented a permanent short to the power bus. This short often pre-existed on the card before it was plugged into the system. Control circuits often were used to detect such shorts that existed as the card was inserted into the system. However, shorts also could develop after the card was plugged into the system. The control circuit did not protect from such a short that developed after the card was inserted. The short often result in damage to the card or to the overall system.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a method of protecting a circuit from a short that occurs after the card is plugged into a system.